20 vehicles that show naming rhyme and reason

What's in a name?

Some meanings aren't what you think

Vehicles are often named after people, places and things, and sometimes they're made up or modified words. But, they're almost always blatantly meant to convey some whimsical image in the buyer’s mind through association with actual things or certain emotions.

Toyota Corolla

The flower of royalty

Corolla refers to the petal structure that makes up a flower, though the word is Latin for the diminutive form of corona (crown or garland), and therefore fits in nicely with Toyota's naming tradition of deriving car names from Crown (Toyota’s first luxury sedan following WWII).

Toyota Camry

A crown by any other name

Camry is the Anglicized phonetic version of kanmuri, the Japanese word for crown (again tying in to Toyota’s naming practices). However, the Japanese word is also used as an adjective that means “best” or “peerless,” which many would argue is the true designation for the midsized sedan.

Hyundai Tiburon

A predator among coupes

Foreign words add a certain flair and sophistication, even if the words themselves designate nothing spectacular. Hyundai’s sporty coupe took the name Tiburon (Spanish for shark), completing the image with a sleek profile, gill-like fender vents behind the front wheels, and an available caudal-fin shaped high spoiler for the rear deck.

Buick Verano

Sunny days in the sedan segment

Sometimes the connotations don’t quite match up with the presentation, as with Buick’s Cruze-based compact sedan, whose name translates as Summer from Spanish. It perhaps would have been better suited to the convertible Cascada (whose names translates to waterfall) than to a tight-fitting 4-door sedan.

Range Rover Velar

Shrouded in mystery

The name is derived from the Italian verb “velare,” which means to veil or conceal. It was used as the make on pre-production Rover SUVs that would become the Range Rover, reportedly thought up by engineer Geof Miller and registered as a company in order to disguise the upcoming Rovers while they were testing.

Alfa Romeo Stelvio

The peak of driving exhilaration

Stelvio is the name of a mountain pass — the highest paved pass in the Eastern Alps and second highest in the entire range. The road, with its 75 hairpin turns, is regarded as one of the most scenic yet challenging drives in the world, especially in winter, which is the climate in which Alfa’s first utility vehicle is apt to excel.

Nissan Murano

Exquisitely and delicately crafted

Locations are also name favourites (think Ferrari California or Hyundai Santa Fe, for example), and companies tend to pick names that add visual associations to the model. Murano is a city of closely grouped islands in the Venetian lagoon, separated and navigable by canals. It is known for its gorgeous glass-making, so Murano not only conveys an exotic location but also exquisite detail.

Subaru B9 Tribeca

Stylish and trendy

Tribeca is a trendy neighbourhood on the east side of Lower Manhattan — the name is a portmanteau for the TRIangle BElow CAnal street. It was added to the B9 model name reportedly to take advantage of the connotations of the “progressive style, art, and culture” associated with the neighbourhood through its festivals and celebrations.

Porsche Cayman

A coupe with a bite

Many would assume the Porsche sporty coupe is named after the Caribbean island chain, and they’d be partly right. The name is actually derived from caiman – a small freshwater alligator that inhabits the marshy jungles of central and south America — as presumably are the islands, though no caimans inhabit them.

Lamborghini Murciélago

Bullish on performance

Animals are a favourite for car names because buyers can picture the animal and transpose its defining qualities to the vehicle. Lamborghini is probably the most famous for naming its cars after animals, though it chooses to name its models after bulls associated with bullfighting, such as Murciélago, itself named after an animal — murciélago is Spanish for bat, which sheds new light on why Bruce Wayne would own one.

Ford Mustang

Flying high above its rivals

Despite its association with the free-roaming feral horses of the American prairies (I mean, the galloping pony is right there in the grille, right?), Mustang was actually named after the WWII long-range fighter plane that aided in the Allies gaining air superiority in 1944. Its name was suggested by Ford designer John Najjar, who was responsible for the look of the new sporty coupe.

Chevrolet Corvette

Small, manoeuvrable and ready for battle

Also tracing its roots to wartime, the Corvette was named after a small, manoeuvrable warship. Its name was reportedly proposed by Chevrolet employee Myron Scott (whose claim to fame was the development of the All-American Soap Box Derby series for gravity-powered home-made four-wheeled conveyances) when Chevrolet wanted a car name starting with C, and not the name of an animal.

Bugatti Veyron

Honouring racing glory

In recent years, Bugatti decided to go with names of different celebrities for its model designations — race car drivers. The Veyron is named after Pierre Veyron, an early Bugatti development engineer and test car driver who went on to racing success, most notably at Le Mans, where he drove to victory at the wheel of a Bugatti.

Lotus Elise

Keep it in the family

Some makers choose personalities that are more of a tribute to themselves than any past heritage. Such is the case of the Lotus Elise, which is reportedly named after Elisa, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli, chairman of Lotus (and also Bugatti) at the time the car was conceived and developed. Bankruptcy and the sales of the companies would result in Astioli’s dismissal, but his granddaughter is now immortalized in the auto world.

Nissan Qashqai

Nomadic utility

People, as a group, are sometimes the source of names, especially if they are exotic by nature or sound like it. Qashqai would certainly qualify, especially in the English languages that put U’s after Qs. Named after a conglomeration of tribes in southwestern Iran, Qashqai is meant to convey an ease in roaming wherever you please and also toughness, since nomads historically through their wandering across territories tend to have to fight for their survival.

Volkswagen Touareg

Influential and tough

Although it sounds like a made-up word, meant to play on the image of a grand “Touring” vehicle, Touareg is actually derived from Tuareg (sometimes Touareg) — nomadic wanderers of the Sahara Desert to which many attribute the spread of the Muslim religion across Africa. Tuaregs are tough, too, reportedly controlling trade routes and influencing conflicts in Northern Africa.

Volkswagen Passat

The answer, my friends, is blowing ...

Volkswagen is perhaps best known for naming its vehicles after winds — Golf, Jetta, Bora, Scirocco, Vento and Passat. The latter two aren’t really names of winds but rather words for winds. Vento is Italian and Portuguese for wind, and Passat is the German terminology for tropical or trade wind.

Maserati Ghibli

Hot or cool, depending on where you stand

Winds are a favourite of car makers because they often influence so much of the world, whether they’re affecting climactic conditions or helping people travel between continents. A favourite Maserati name, it’s a Mediterranean wind that blows from the Sahara, causing dust storms in Northern Africa, and as it extends farther north, deluging southern Europe. If it were a Volkswagen, in case you were wondering, it would probaby be named Scirocco.

Porsche Boxster

The name pretty much says it all

Most of the time, though, car names are made up, with manufacturers sometimes justifying their choices by asking people to “squint” a bit in order to see the reasoning. Some, though, are straightforward portmanteaus, such as Porsche’s mid-engined sports car, whose name is a combination of BOXer (the common name for the horizontally opposed engine layout used by Porsche) and roadSTER (the bodystyle).

Bentley Bentayga

At home in any country

Bentley’s SUV is sort of named after Taiga, the boreal forest that stretches completely around the world, north of the 49th parallel. The first part of the portmanteau is named after the manufacturer Bentley, so the idea is that the vehicle is a Bentley for wilderness adventures, and it’s at home in Canada, Russia, Iceland and pretty much every country in between.